Homegoing services celebrating the life of Rev. Joan Parrott will take place at the First Baptist Church, 229 N. King Street on Aug. 19 with viewing from 3 p.m to 5:30 p.m., and reflection from 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m.; on Aug. 20, viewing begins at 8:30 a.m. with memorial services to follow at 10 a.m.

In honor of her memory, the Daily Press has re-posting this profile originally published in March.

When the Rev. Joan S. Parrott needs a moment to herself, she drinks chamomile tea and watches comedy on television. And usually the more ludicrous the comedy, the better.

It’s a necessary guilty pleasure for Parrott, who serves at First Baptist Church of Hampton on N. King Street as its senior pastor — a job that keeps her on her toes.

With a 1,500-member congregation and 60 ministries to oversee at the historic house of worship, the 64-year-old pastor says her days are packed.

Add into the mix is the fierce battle Parrott is facing against spinal cancer. It often leaves the spirited pastor snatching every available minute of the day to research and prepare for her Sunday sermons.

“God has just blessed me to give me energy and the strength,” she said. “There is just something about this congregation. When I get into this building or when I have to preach or teach, this incredible energy … comes over me. I don’t feel anything, except love for these people and love for this office.”

On Sunday, Parrott will officially be installed as the 10th senior pastor of First Baptist in Hampton. She will be the first woman to lead one the city’s oldest Baptist churches, she said.

Parrott had been working as the church’s senior pastor on an interim basis since 2016 after the church’s trustees asked her to step in when the former pastor, the Rev. Richard Wills, stepped down in 2015.

She previously held First Baptist’s “executive pastor” post from 2008 through 2013, after which she took a three-year sabbatical.

Parrott succeeds Wills and a lengthy line of clergy who embraced this senior role, which up until now had been held by a man.

“It’s taken 154 years to shatter the stained glass ceiling,” Parrot said. “It’s a miracle that I am able to just function, but thrive. This is where God has called me. It’s been a long journey.”

It’s a role Parrott unwittingly has been groomed for most of her life, despite being a woman. She grew up in a family of male preachers and future preachers — her brothers.

The journey has been sinuous for Parrott, taking the current Hampton resident from her native East Orange, N.J., to West Africa in the Peace Corps — and personal challenges and doubts before she headed to divinity school, several top pastoral roles to follow and eventually to the pulpit.

“I had a kaleidoscopic journey. I did not go the traditional route as pastor,” she said. “God took me all over the world.”

And First Baptist is celebrating the occasion with flair, kicking off a weeklong slate of events on Sunday, including a concert from the New York’s Brooklyn Tabernacle Singers, plus other dignitaries and guests.

Amid the fanfare, Parrott is calmly aware it’s an important moment in First Baptist’s tradition, as well as for her.

Parrot said a good friend of hers, the Rev. Calvin O. Butts, who leads Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York, reacted to the news about her ecstatically.

“He said, ‘This is huge! I do not know too many churches that have done this that are historically black churches and it’s a thriving church. It is a big, big deal,’ ” Parrott said.

The Rev. Dwight Riddick, senior pastor at Gethsemane Baptist Church, said he welcomes Parrott as a colleague and sees her installation as a refreshing sign of real change.

“It’s also an indication of the direction of the churches are moving in … that churches are becoming more open to female leadership,” Riddick said. “It sends shock waves through the faith community that will certainly encourage other congregations to be open to female leadership.”

“I think it’s great. She is a wonderful person,” said the Rev. Cindy Higgins, senior pastor at First Presbyterian Church of Hampton. “There may be some people who are wringing their hands. Change is always a challenge. They have experienced her leadership. Confirming that call to a permanent position says it all.”

Women clergy

It is still rare to have an ordained female minister, though in some denominations — Episcopalian, American Presbyterian, United Methodist Church, Unitarian Universalists, for example — there are already women leading churches.

Higgins, at First Presbyterian, remembers a time when things weren’t as open, even for her denomination. Once early in her career, she was told by a church they would sooner close their doors before calling a woman pastor.

“Used to be a woman was a Christian educator or associate pastor … that they have a staff position. I think it’s a fairly recent history and rapid movement on that.”

Parrott is a self-described Pentecostal by birth, an American Baptist by choice, and ecumenical by necessity.

She explained the Baptists are a unique group of worshippers. They are a group with many associations, some more conservative than others, she said.

“Baptists — we are eclectic. We are more of an association than a denomination. We are progressive Baptists and we are general Baptist and we are American Baptists,” she said.

“Unlike a Methodist denomination where the bishop says ‘You must do so and so,’ our local congregation is autonomous. We aren’t constrained to do anything. The church is run by the local congregation.”

Becoming a senior pastor at an American Baptist Church might be easier than in other Baptist associations, she said.

Even with progressive groups, Parrott says, it’s not easy for women to pursue senior posts in clergy careers. It’s one reason why she has held executive pastor roles, what’s known as the “second chair” — the person who runs the church, but not the person who preaches.

Judith Lowery / Daily Press

Rev. Joan S. Parrott, First Baptist Church of Hampton, stands in her office as she talks about her calling, ordination and opportunity to meet Pope John Paul II on a couple of occasions.

Rev. Joan S. Parrott, First Baptist Church of Hampton, stands in her office as she talks about her calling, ordination and opportunity to meet Pope John Paul II on a couple of occasions. (Judith Lowery / Daily Press)

“I’ve always worked in the church. I’ve gone to seminary the I’ve done all the training, all the educational requirements and beyond what you need to do,” she said.

However, in terms of employment, women face the same discrimination in the church as they do in the corporate world, Parrott said.

“It was so difficult for women to pastor,” she said. “I think because of sexism, misogyny, all the same reasons in the corporate world — and just fear. The same things in the corporate world came through in the church.”

Parrott’s path to a senior pastor role evolved from a conversation she had with another woman after she called her a “coward” for not being brave enough to apply for a senior pastor role.

“Why do you say that? ‘Because you have never put your name in to be a senior pastor,’ ” Parrot recalled. “ ‘You have more pastoral experience than all of us. If you put your name in, you would get a church. That would help open the door for other women to get a church.’ ”

For five years, the conversation “gnawed” at her, she said.

When the opportunity came to return to First Baptist as an interim pastor, Parrott asked to have in her contract the option to apply for the senior role permanently.

She applied for this job, a grueling and protracted experience, which lasted during her entire time as the interim pastor, she said.

Parrot has an extended list of appointments and accolades going back to 1981, which have prepared her for this role.

While they are experiences that added to her career tapestry, it really all began with the solid foundation she received in her youth.

Groomed from the start

When Parrott was a young girl, she and her brothers would play church and in their innocent make-believe world, it was OK for Parrott, a girl, to take a turn as the preacher. It was a common pastime for Parrott and her five brothers who grew up in an extended family of preachers.

Her father was head pastor at the Lighthouse Church, in her native East Orange, N.J.

“I grew up in the just most wonderful household, with normalcy and love and protected, but also being accountable,” she said.

Growing up in the church meant everyone pitched in with some task, everything from directing the choir to working in the church office.

But, when it came time to speak during the real services, a shy Parrott said she was reluctant to take her turn. She avoided the task, by hiding between the pews or by ducking into the bathroom, she said.

“My father would push me, he would push me to speak,” she said. “My brothers would always speak in the church. My father required the same things of me as he did my brothers.”

While he always encouraged her, it was understood that everyone could be called a minister, but not her.

“As a little girl, I accepted that. In my heart, I felt something else,” she said.

Prior to graduating high school in 1972, Parrott’s initial career interest was in law. By the time she finished Montclair State College in 1978, she had earned a sociology degree.

It led her to teaching fourth grade in East Orange Public Schools and later she became a vocational counselor.

Parrott joined the U.S. Peace Corps in 1981 and went to Niger, West Africa — a predominately Muslim county — spending 27 months there. After serving impoverished children who were malnourished and working alongside midwives to birth babies in a village called Maradi, she received her spiritual calling.

Parrott went on to enroll and graduate from Union Theological Seminary in New York, earning her master’s in Divinity. She later became an ordained minister at Bethany Baptist Church, in which she became the first woman ordained in its church’s 134-year history.

Previously Parrott was the Executive Pastor at Park Ministries, an enormous congregation in Charlotte, NC, with 11,000 members and 80 ministries. She left Park Ministries in 2008 to come to First Baptist.